The Social Media Minute (22-July-2009)

Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:

Google Reader Gets A Bit More Connected

IE 6 Must Go The Way of the Dodo Bird!

Twitter's Security is Terrible

MySpace Continues To Fall In Entertainment Space

Google Reader Gets A Bit More Connected

Google Reader, the well-used RSS reader for Google services users, has added features to help you share content you find interesting. Taking a cue from Facebook and other sharing platforms, Google Reader users can now follow other user's featured articles and "like" them.

So, now you not only seek out your peers and find out what they find interesting in Google Reader, but you can push out articles you find interesting to them as well. The idea of "liking" another's content is not new -- it is a feature found in two other social networking platforms: Facebook and FriendFeed.

This move by Google is huge because it represents the company's recognition that its users are no longer happy just seeking out information on the Internet, the way many RSS readers do now, and have done for years.

Google Reader now allows you to push your favorite content out to your friends, making the news reading process a bit more interactive.

IE 6 Must Go The Way of the Dodo Bird!

Ben Parr of Mashable pens a scathing review of Internet Explorer 6, the browser that was ahead of its time when it was debuted 8 years ago, but has since stifled innovation in the web space. As Parr points out, 15-25% of Internet users are still stuck using the antiquated browser, much to the chagrin of web designers and programmers.

IE 6 is a 'broken' browser because of it's non-standard methods of handling javascript, a programming language that powers many of the features you enjoy on the web every day. Web designers and programmers spend many hours writing special versions of their web sites for IE 6 users and it's time to stop, according to Parr. This is especially true considering how many alternatives there are now including Firefox, IE 8, Opera and Google Chrome (all of which are free).

In my opinion, the reason so many people haven't moved on from IE 6 is because they don't change the browser that automatically came on their computer when they bought it. Also, with Windows XP still so prevalent (because Windows Vista was such a flop that not many Windows users bought it), IE 6 is still hanging around.

When Windows 7 comes out later this summer, many folks will have a brand new version of Internet Explorer at their hand and we can finally move on.

Twitter's Security is Terrible

Recent postings on the Internet are showing a French site who appears to have, at one point, had access to many security assets of not only the Twitter service admin accounts, but the personal accounts of Twitter Ev Williams as well. At first the screenshots appeared to be false, but it is looking more likely that they are legit.

It is apparent with these developments, combined with the security breaches of popular celebrity accounts a few months ago, that security practices at Twitter are far from being acceptable for a popular Internet service company. It should also point to us all that using strong passwords and changing them often is vitally important in the online world.

Also, these lax security practices mean for us, as users of Twitter, that you should not use the service to hold sensitive data. Treat Twitter as you would your e-mail and never leave information that you wouldn't shout from a window.

MySpace Continues To Fall In Entertainment Space

A few years ago, MySpace was *the* place to find online media. Popular bands used the social network to connect with their fans and people flocked to MySpace to hear their favorite tracks. Also, MySpace users embraced media and would adorn their MySpace page with tracks and hits by popular bands.

Now, it appears, according to data from HitWise, MySpace is no longer the king of entertainment related web traffic. MySpace, as a traffic generator, used to originate 35% of all worldwide traffic to entertainment/multimedia websites in 2006. Now, it appears that this number is down to 9.4% of worldwide traffic. Over the last three years, they have shed almost 70% of all their entertainment traffic. Ouch!

What site has taken over as the leading entertainment site, according to HitWise's figures? YouTube.

It is apparent that if MySpace wants to come back into the realm of relevancy, they should likely re-embrace the audience that brought them to their original popularity and start amping up their entertainment-related efforts once more. Otherwise, they might even more stature.

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